August Gaines
The cell smells a bit musty. There are only a few things in it: a hard slab like cot, a single wooden chair and table and, oddly, a Bible and Qur’an on a simple shelf set into the wall.
I take down the Qur’an, sit at the table and begin to read it. I’ve never been able to read it before, and this is as good a chance as any. One can never have too much knowledge after all.
I pointedly avoid looking at the single camera set in the corner. As my eyes flit across the pages of the Muslim holy book. I consider my options. I could stay here, but my gut tells me I have to leave.
Regardless of my value and the information I possessed I had a feeling it would take a long time before I was let out.
I try to think from the perspective of the Lord First and the Inner Chamber.
My novelty would wear off soon. I could act coy for a while and resist, but eventually I’d be worn down.
Not overt torture or questioning, never that; just little hints of promises and threats, setting the lights in this windowless room so my days would be longer and my nights shorter.
March always says I’m a seriously tough cookie, but when the Summoners want information, they usually get it.
For the First Lord of course, I represented different value.
Aunt Priya had spent years forming her tiny circle of people who wanted the 4th Society to change, to loosen up. He would definitely use my ‘detainment’ as a weapon to discredit her.
My ‘diplomatic’ value to earn cooperation from the 1st Society had to be taken into account as well. I wouldn’t be getting out of here till my hairs turned grey.
A sort of dark dread settles in my heart. There is something off about the Lord First. My throat clenches a bit and I get goosebumps on my arms.
Even though I have no proof, I feel as if my life is in danger. Some part of me doesn’t want to risk it, trying to break out, but the more I think about it, the more subdued that part of me becomes.
Finally, I make up my mind and touch the dark pink crystal on my necklace; thankful they haven’t taken away my personal effects yet.
I had been honest and told the Inner Chamber what I had been working on. I technically this was not my project, it was Issah’s. Like mine it was close to anathema.
I focused as I clenched the crystal, even though my mind was muzzy from the guarding lines set into all the walls. It was like trying to see through a fog. A fog that swallowed all other senses as well. I pushed at it mentally and it refused to yield. I pushed harder and yet again I failed.
Desperate, I began to batter against the fog again and again and again.
I was just about to take a break when, as sharp as whip blade, a familiar sending made it through.
“August?”
Even in a sending, Tes’s pronunciation of my name seemed exotic, or maybe that was just my imagination.
I almost cried in relief. The tiny, cheap looking crystal was an idea of Issah’s; a blood crystal.
It was a known fact that physical contact is needed before a dream shifter can move a living thing. They can 'shift non-living things with a look (When they had been the only Society, aeons ago, that particular skill had been used as a weapon)
Issah had the idea of using blood as a substitute for physical connection. Stored in vials, fresh blood had worked, but when it congealed and blackened it became useless.
I suggested getting an Alchemyst to suspend blood in a crystal substrate before it congealed, and it had worked like a charm, literally.
As an added side effect, the Faerie whose blood was in the crystal could be reached without using the Network or far casting. Issah termed it the “dream-bandwidth” connection.
“August?”
Tes sends again, a hint of worry in her sending.
I respond in a rush, “Tes, I don’t know how much time I have, but I need your help”.
She doesn’t question my hunch when I explain, something Issah definitely would've done. All concern, she simply asks “Where do you need to go?”
I send her an image of tiny mop cupboard within the Collegium block of Ste. Julien.
She couldn’t send me out of the building even if she tried, mine wasn’t one of the signatures given clearance to 'shift in and out at will. But the mop cupboard was a start.
Her ‘shifting is quick and precise. My left foot lands in an unemptied mop bucket, but, as I expected, the cupboard is empty.
Tes and I talk over escape options. In a few minutes, someone would look at the monitoring screen of my detainment cell and notice I wasn’t there. She wants to patch in Issah, but I convince her not to. She would have to get in touch with him via Network, and that sending can be traced.
My heart leaps to my mouth as I hear the Siren.
“They’ve noticed”.
Then I remember that the Collegium siren is sounded for only one emergency, an attack on the Collegium itself.
But how can that be? It’s 4 O’clock, darkness hasn’t fallen yet. Curious, I press my ear against the door. A few voices can be heard as they rush past the other side. I don’t hear much, but I hear enough. A single name is mentioned over and over again, a name of nightmares.
‘Longinus!’
I scuttled to the back of the cupboard, as far away from the door as possible. The Divine Spear Magus who calls himself Longinus is a killer, of both Society and Magi.
Every initiate knows about him and his polished brass mask, stylized in the form of some Greco-Roman helmet. There was said to be only one way to deal with the Magus if he wanted you dead: run and never stop.
Finally the rushing footsteps pass and the corridor is silent. I touch the crystal to update Tes but before I can make the link the door is smashed open.
I instinctively close my eyes as I flinch, and when I open them, Longinus stands before me.
I almost pee on myself.
Ok, well I do, just a teeny tiny bit.
He is lean and tall with broad shoulders. Strangely, he’s dressed in dark grey, tapered and creased slacks; an extremely well cut trench coat – could almost swear its Burberry - and polished brogues.
His mask is the same as it is in the drawings though, a slightly pitted stylized brass mask.
Wait, it’s not a mask, it’s a full, honest to God helmet!
My fight or flight reflexes kick in, I hurtle towards him and kick him in the gonads (fight) and as he bends over, clutching his tummy, I take the chance to dart through the door (flight).
The panting of my breath and my pounding feet seem overly loud in the deserted hallways. But I keep running. At this point I’m actually considering going back to my cell.
I sprint down a stairwell and bump into two acolytes.
“Sorry,” one of them begins to say, as he helps me up.
“wait, aren’t you supposed to be detained?”
The horror is my voice is definitely not faked when I squeak desperately, “Longinus!... coming this way!”
They quickly head up the staircase, (flaming idiots!) and I take that as permission to keep running. I definitely can’t go back to my cell now that those two have seen me. At the next landing I turn left and slow down a little.
I’m winded and developing a stitch.
Mens sana in corpore sano, ‘a sound mind in a sound body’ Dad used to say. Unfortunately, since my initiation, I had only developed my ‘mens’ and not so much my ‘corpore’.
I stagger as quickly as I can; trying to remember which direction the boiler room is in. It seems like a good place to hide.
Totally beat, I stop and lean against a pillar to take a breather. I was a fool to think I could escape.
I’m so winded I don’t notice the presence behind me till it’s too late. A callused palm covers my mouth from behind whilst another holds my arms to my sides like a steel band.
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